Jane LaTour joined the staff of the Association for Union Democracy in June 1989 and remained a strong ally and friend to AUD until her death in April of 2023. By 1989, when LaTour first came to be a part of AUD, she was already a well-seasoned veteran of rank-and-file union struggles. Apropos of her work in union democracy activism generally is LaTour’s posthumous book Backroom Bargaining: Racketeering and Rebellion in New York City’s Labor Unions which was released in March 2026 by University of Illinois Press. We at AUD cherish Jane’s memory and and are honored to offer her focused effort of profiling dissent in New York City’s labor movement and the men and women who risked so much to simply exercise their democratic rights therein;
